Crumble
by SadieGrace
Summary: Sometimes things that are meant to be still fall apart. And sometimes they get the chance to begin again. (Multichapter alternate ending to "Crumble" from To Love At All). Epilogue now up!
1. Corrode

_AN: A little while back, I posted a follow-up to chapter 16 of **Hermies818**'s "_The Glory of Love_" collection. That one-shot, "Crumble," is posted as chapter 5 of my collection "_To Love at All_." Over the past few weeks, an alternate ending to that piece has been growing and developing in my_ _head and has taken on a mind of its own. This is that story. If you've read "Crumble," this starts off the same way. _

_This piece grew partly out of a conversation with **JerichoSteele**. You can blame him. Also, I've been feeling the need to write something more substantial than the fluffy one-shots I've been writing for the last few months. I've been listening to Jason Gray's song "Forgiveness is a Miracle" this Christmas season, and while the song has absolutely nothing to do with this story in general, certain lines really connected with this as I was writing. You'll find a few lines from it in here. _

_The ideas and inspiration of this piece came from **Hermies818**. This one-shot follows immediately after the end of chapter 16 of _"The Glory of Love," titled _"Lose a Little/Kensi and Deeks Fight." If you haven' t read that one, I strongly suggest you do so before reading this. _

_I don't own the song, anything related to NCIS:LA, or Hermies818's original piece._

* * *

><p><em>"What needs to happen so we can just move past this?"<em>

_From their opposing sides of the bed, Kensi and Deeks just stared at each other, no movement, no words, for what felt like years. The bed in between them might just as well have been the Pacific Ocean. The unspoken answer to her question hung heavy in the air, like some invisible beast that would destroy them at the first sign of movement. In every war, no matter how large or how small, there were always casualties. Always." _

_(excerpt from _"The Glory of Love,"_ Chapter 16, by Hermies818)_

* * *

><p><em>"Love can make a soul come alive<br>Love can draw a dream out of the darkness  
>And blow every door open wide<br>But love can leave you brokenhearted."_

_(Jason Gray- Forgiveness is a Miracle) _

* * *

><p><strong>Corrode<strong>

"I don't think I can, Kensi." His voice has gone quiet, and he almost has to force the gravelly reply out of his mouth. The use of her full name shakes her almost as much as the words he speaks.

"You don't think you can _what_?" She knows full well what he means, but she refuses to believe it.

"You said _no_, Kens—" _there, _there's her nickname, and it makes her breathe just a little easier for a second—until the next words come. "I don't think I can just get past that. I wanted to marry you and you said no. And you seem to be able to just forget that and move on, but I can't."

The chasm that is the bed between them only seems to be getting wider as he speaks.

"I've tried, Kensi. You know I've tried to just move past it and let it go." The cracks in his voice are terrifying her, but she can't find the breath to stop him.

"I love you. I love you so much." They are familiar words, but his tone is foreign to her. They're usually spoken warmly, occasionally frantically, sometimes softly. Today, the only emotions she identifies in them are pain and resignation, and it chills her. "And I thought it could be enough even if you didn't love me as much as I loved you. I thought as long as you were mine, it would be enough.

"But every time something like this happens, my brain reminds me that you're _not_ really mine. It tells me that of course I'm not enough to keep someone like you forever. And I know you say you don't believe in it, but part of me thinks that if _I_ was enough, I could make you believe in it, for _me_. It tells me that even if you think you love me now, subconsciously the reason you can't decide to marry me is because you know that sooner or later someone better is going to come along.

"I want to put a ring on your finger and promise you forever and _know_ that I'm going to wake up next to you for the rest of our lives, and I can't just stop wanting that."

"If you loved me, you would just let it go." She wants to eat her words the moment they escape from her mouth. She's sworn she'd never be one of those women who manipulated her man with _if you loved me_ statements.

"Or maybe, if you loved _me_, you would understand why I can't."

She's aching to touch him, to ease the tension she sees frozen in his muscles as he stiffly turns to go. The remaining anger mingles with fear as she waits for the slamming of the door; somehow the soft click of it gently closing is far worse.

* * *

><p>He checks into a hotel and turns the TV on to try and drown out his thoughts, but it doesn't work.<p>

He just left. He doesn't know if he's going back.

His whole world is wrapped up in _Kensi_ and he can't even wish it any other way. He only wishes that it didn't come down to this decision.

He could go back. He could go back and she'd probably let him in, and they would go back to pretending that everything was fine. Maybe everything really was fine for Kensi, but it would always be pretending for him.

She makes him want _more_. He wants to not have to pretend.

He lays there for hours trying to change his own mind, but he can't. He wants more and she's made her position clear. He can't resign himself spending his life faking it with the woman he loves.

The fact that the alternative is _not _being with the woman he loves rips his heart to shreds. But he knows he'll only be able to fake it for so long, and eventually that unresolved issue and unmet need will corrode their relationship and his heart and it'll end up crumbling, and they'll be left in pieces all over again. It'll sneak into every argument and every late night, every question, fear, and doubt, and eventually it will destroy her faith in him and his in her.

Surely it's better to better to face it now, when maybe they can both still get out with at least some part of their hearts intact.

* * *

><p>He's at the beach at first light, unable to sleep in the unfamiliar empty bed. He has to rent a board and wetsuit because his are back at the apartment where his things and her things and all mixed up with <em>their <em>things and he tries not to think yet about the painful process of detangling their lives from one another's.

She's there in the early morning light when his feet hit the sand after his third unsatisfactory run. She silently watches him approach and there is a long moment of tense quiet before she speaks. Reaching out, she wraps her fingers around his wrist, his skin is cold from the ocean water and the early morning wind.

"Deeks. Just come home. Come back and we can forget all about this and—"

She cuts off as he removes his wrist from her grasp. It's the first time her simple touch has left shards of pain instead of sparks of wonder.

For a second, as he leans in, she looks hopeful. But he closes his eyes tight as he presses his lips to her forehead, hoping both to keep the liquid in them from spilling out and to impress this moment, this last moment, in his memory.

"I can't, Kensi. I won't spend my life lying to you about what I want. I can't do it anymore. I tried, but I can't. We want different things. We _need_ different things; I can't give you what you need."

There is a moment of silent shock, and then he whispers "goodbye." He leans in to kiss her softly again on the forehead, carefully keeping the rest of his body away from hers. As soon as he tears his lips from her skin, he turns and moves quickly away, hoping to make it to somewhere private before the iron fist around his stomach and his heart brings him to his knees.

He makes it around a bend behind an outcropping of rock before his knees hit the sand. Every system in his body physically revolts alongside his heart and he loses his breakfast on the beach as he goes down, trembling.

He's doing what he had sworn he'd never do; he's walking away from her of his own free will.

* * *

><p><em>AN2: This is just the starter chapter, not much different than the previously posted "Crumble" in <em>To Love At All, _other than the ending_. _This story has been mostly written for weeks—I just didn't have the time or the heart to write angst after "Humbug," but it should all be out fairly quickly now. It will probably__ be 5-6 small chapters total, most of which are basically finished. If I can find the time to tweak and touch up, I might be able to update almost daily. We'll see. No promises. Certainly shouldn't drag on for too long. _

_Love to hear what you think of the beginning and what you think is coming for them._


	2. Cold

**Cold**

_"When love is like an open wound  
>There's no way to stop the bleeding<br>Did you lose sleep over what to do?  
>Between what's just and what brings healing"<em>

_(Jason Gray—Forgiveness is a Miracle)_

* * *

><p>He's at the mission early in the pre-dawn hours on Monday, handing Hetty a typewritten letter; it's his resignation. He's not sure he really actually has to turn one in since technically he still works for LAPD, not NCIS, but it seemed like the right thing to do after all the time he's been with them.<p>

"Effective immediately," he says firmly as she unfolds and skims the letter.

"At least two weeks is the customary—" she starts, but for the first time that he can remember he interrupts her.

"Effective immediately," he repeats. It comes out sounding cold, but _cold_ and _numb_ are the best and easiest of the emotions that he's felt for the last two days and he doesn't know how to feel or sound any different right now.

This is one goodbye he had begun to think he would never have to say, let alone so suddenly. But, really, he won't be saying goodbye; he'll let Hetty do that for him. He plans to make this the last time he sets foot inside these doors. He's already holding on to his emotions by a thread, two more hours would rip the last sheds of his sanity to, well, shreds, let alone two more weeks.

He calls her on his way out of town, when he's pretty sure he'll get her voicemail. His go-bag is in his back seat, topped off with the contents of his locker and a couple sets of brand new clothes and toiletries. Next to it is a cardboard box with the contents of his desk and other personal items from work. It goes with him because there's nowhere else for it to go.

"Hi Kensi… I, uh, just wanted to let you know that I'm going to take a week or two and go, uh, somewhere. I'll come by in a couple weeks and get my stuff. You can keep ou—the, um, the other things. I'll call you when I get back and you can let me know when would be a good time to come by." There is an awkward pause while he stares at his phone and tries to figure out how to end the message. It's the first one in a long time that won't end in _I love you_ and while it's still true, it's no longer his place to say. Finally he settles on an awkward "Okay bye," and hangs up.

He drives east without any real plan except to not be in LA right now. He winds up somewhere north of Santa Fe, New Mexico when he finally decides to stop for a few days. It's barren and beautiful and the slant of the sunset light in the evening is _almost _warm enough to thaw the numbness that's crept over him. He spends his days exploring and hiding in his motel room, figuring out how to be alone again. He'd made the transition from lone wolf to team member to _family _gradually and fairly easily. The transition back is so much more sudden and so much harder, but he spends the days talking to himself and reminding himself that he's on his own again, that this is the life he knows best, this is who he really is.

It's at night when he's turned that mantra off and is trying to sleep that the reminders of who he really _wants_ to be and the life he really _wants_ to be living force themselves back in. He never figures out how to turn those reminders off, but the time far away from the life he's leaving behind at least gives him a buffer between what _was_ and what _is now_. It's like detox, in a way, rapidly moving through the stages of withdrawal before he can return to life again.

* * *

><p>When he gets back, LAPD offers to subsidize his rent for an apartment in a neighborhood that could use the police presence so he takes them up on it. It's small and dingy and cold, but it suits his needs. He doesn't have any inclination to redecorate or make improvements; there's nobody to impress, and he left behind any expectations he had for <em>warmth<em> and _home_ in an apartment on the other side of the city. Even after his stuff is moved in it never loses its cold feeling.

He doesn't call Kensi immediately after he returns; he finds his new place and moves the contents of his go-bag and the cardboard box in, and then he buys a set of cheap dishes and a couch that Kensi would have hated and fills his refrigerator. Finally, a week and half after his return, he texts her. It's polite and to the point and it leaves him feeling hollow.

_Hi Kensi, is tomorrow night a good time for me to stop by and get my stuff?_

Her reply is equally businesslike and equally devastating.

_Fine. I'm going to be out with Nell, but you can let yourself in. _

He breathes a sigh of relief at the information that she won't be there, even as his heart sinks. He's dying to see her, hear her, touch her, but he's pretty sure that all of that would be the absolute worst thing for him at this point. A clean break. That's what he needs.

At the apartment the next night he leaves a lot of things that are really his, but they belonged to a him that had plans and dreams and they just carry too much with them that he can't take with him. He leaves a note on the table with his key when he finishes packing to let her know that she can keep or throw whatever is left.

Monty is the hardest thing to leave, but his new apartment location and his new work hours are hardly pet-friendly, and Kensi has been left alone too many times in her life. Monty is the only way he knows how to not leave her completely alone.

Closing the door behind him is one of the hardest things he's ever done. It's the final surrender, the physical acknowledgment that he's going through with this, that he's irrevocably alone again. The last box is in his hands; his key is on the table; there's no reason to come back. It takes every ounce of willpower he has to pull it closed behind him, but he steels the tremble that appears in his hand and does it anyway.

* * *

><p>One night a month in, he gets talked into drinks with the guys after work and comes home just tipsy enough to be sentimental. As it so happens, it's also the night that he discovers an old saved message on his phone that he'd forgotten about.<p>

It's this year's _happy birthday_ message. In it, she's happy and playful and she loves him, and he spends the rest of the night sitting on his couch getting very, _very_ drunk and playing it over and over and over just to hear the warmth in her voice and the sound of her laugh.

When he wakes in the morning, he's nauseous and his head is screaming at him. The first thing he does—after vomiting and before coffee, aspirin, or a shower—is go in and delete the message. Nights like that aren't how you make a clean break.

He grits his teeth and decides that there will be no more of that kind of weakness.


	3. Contemplate

**Contemplate**

_"Pain can turn to anger then to vengeance_

_It happens time and again_

_Even in the best of men_

_It takes a miracle to save us"_

_(Jason Gray—Forgiveness is a Miracle)_

* * *

><p>Things had been good. Things had been <em>so<em> good. She'd been walking on a cloud of happiness she'd never known before, thinking things could just stay that way forever. But then he had to go and change them. He had to want more, and she couldn't give it. And now she wakes up in the morning just waiting to see what's going to stab her in the back today, what's going to stomp on the pieces of her heart that she's trying so hard to hide away again.

Her father died and she hunted for his killer. Jack left and she searched for him. But now Deeks is gone and there's nothing to do but be angry.

She's stubborn and she's scared and she's still angry with him, but it's the _need_ that is the most crippling. Kensi Blye doesn't like feeling debilitated by anything and the feeling just feeds her anger.

That last month—the month after he proposed and before he left—she hadn't really allowed herself the time to think through the reasons why she said no. It was enough that she had said no and he had stayed; there was no need to think it over any more deeply—except that she'd been ignoring the signs that things were falling apart.

The first weeks that he's gone she spends too angry to consider anything else. She needs it to be his fault, his issue so that she can stay angry, because anger is the easiest way to deal with all the other things she doesn't want to feel.

She goes to work and they don't ask questions and she never offers explanations. They just look at the empty desk and wonder.

She knows immediately when she arrives one morning that one of them finally has finally gone to Hetty to ask what is going on. They've been looking at her with questions in their eyes, waiting for her to explain. Then suddenly one day the questions are replaced by sorrow, and she knows they know.

It's Callen who finally goes to Hetty for some clarification of what's going on. As team leader, it's his duty to try and understand what's going on with his team. He's been hoping—they've all been hoping—that Deeks was just taking some time off while he and Kensi sorted out what they wanted and what their plans were, maybe cooled off after a spat. But when he asks Hetty, her eyes are too sad for this to be just temporary, and her words confirm that.

"Mr. Deeks is back with the police department. He has no plans to return to NCIS."

He doesn't get anything further out of her, and, when Kensi turns down after-work drinks with them, he quietly shares what he knows with the others. It's not the first time he's lost a team member, but it doesn't make it easier.

Kensi's never quite sure what they think of the whole situation. They haven't blamed her, but they haven't absolved her of her responsibility either. Everyone at work is well aware that Deeks proposed, and they have a pretty good idea of what had followed, even if they never said anything about it. She wants them to take her side and blame him; instead, they offer sympathy but not absolution.

* * *

><p>Six weeks into this period of living hell, Sam suggests that maybe she ought to move. He volunteers to help find the perfect place and offers the services of Callen and the rest of the Hanna family to help her move.<p>

She brushes him off and tells him that Monty needs stability right now and shouldn't be put through another major change. It's a thin excuse, but Sam drops it. The fact is that it hurts to walk through the door of that empty apartment every day. There are gaps everywhere that she never bothered to fill after he packed his things. A part of her that she refuses to acknowledge that thinks she deserves it; she's reached the stage where she thinks the pain is just punishment for her weakness. The other side of it is that the idea of moving to another apartment feels like letting go of him, and even though he's gone and she's still angry, she hasn't even begun to let him go.

* * *

><p>A week after she blows off Sam's suggestion, an unfamiliar man follows Hetty into the bullpen one afternoon. She doesn't have to ask who he is. His presence means the time has run out. After Hetty introduces him, he arranges a couple of personal items on the desk that has sat empty for nearly two months and makes friendly small talk with the others. She declines his offer of one of the Snickers bars he found left in his new desk drawer. Mercifully, there is only an hour left in the day, so she makes polite conversation and pretends to be okay with <em>Probationary Special Agent Harris.<em>

When she gets home and closes the door behind her and Monty barrels into her legs, she cries for the first time. It's not that Harris seems like a bad person, it's just that Harris makes it all real. Harris means starting over. Harris means that Hetty has stopped believing that Deeks might change his mind and come home.

Just today, she wishes she had less faith in the all-knowingness of their Operations Manager.

She sits with her back to the door, facing an empty apartment and cries long into the night. Monty curls in her lap and lays his sympathetic head on her shoulder and never even whines for his dinner.

When she finally stops crying, it's the beginning and the end. She's spent weeks being angry; now, for the first time she allows herself to consider whether she's more angry at him or at herself, or if anger is just the only response she knows for this situation.

He's the patient one. It's always been him, not her. She'd come to count on that, come to depend on the fact that he'd stick it out through whatever she asked of him.

As far as he has known, _nobody's_ ever really wanted him. Except that she does. She wants him so much that every reminder that he's not there anymore breaks her all over again. But she had, in essence, told him she didn't, and she doesn't know how to take that back, how to convince him that he's still her whole world. She's not good at feelings and apologies. What she's good at is anger and stubbornness, passion and perseverance. That night is the end of the anger and the beginning of a systematic analysis of all the _whys _of everything that has gone wrong in the last few months.

Why had she not seen it coming? Why had she said no? He'd offered time, patience, all he'd wanted was hope, so why had she so adamantly rejected the possibility of ever saying yes? When had she decided that she would never marry? _Why_ had she decided that she would never marry? Did those reasons even hold any weight anymore? Why is the thought of marriage one that brings fear instead of excitement? Just what is she so afraid of? What is the price of giving into that fear, and what will it cost to overcome it?

They are not questions for one night or a few nights, but she attacks them with a tenacious energy and they give birth to more and more questions. For weeks, she forces herself through an objective analysis of herself, her past, her choices, her emotions, and her fears. There are times she doesn't like what she sees, but she presses on.

She's certain there's an answer out there, if only she can ask the right questions.


	4. Chaos

**Chaos**

_"Pain can be a road to find compassion  
>When we don't understand<br>And bring a better end  
>It takes a miracle to show<em> _us"_

_(Jason Gray-Forgiveness is a Miracle)  
><em>

* * *

><p>It's barely more than a week into her journey of introspection when she sees him for the first time since he left. She's picking up coffee on the way to work. It's the morning rush hour and it's crowded and she's at the register ordering before she sees him standing at the other end of the counter waiting for his order. He hasn't seen her yet. He looks thinner but she knows the lines of his body well enough to know that the muscles in his arms and chest are more clearly defined than they used to be; he's been working out more. The smile he gives to the barista when she delivers his order is forced.<p>

He turns and freezes as he catches her eye, and then she can see him deliberately relax his muscles, one at a time, and take a slow breath. The smile he gives her is so fake she wants to strike it from his face. His image starts swimming before she realizes she's tearing up, and when he sees it his expression turns pained. They exchange an awkward greeting and then he's turning to go when her hand involuntarily reaches out to catch his forearm. The familiar warmth of his skin under her fingers shocks and distracts her. All she manages to get out is a weak "Deeks—I'm sorry."

His smile is sad as he takes a step back, away from her.

"I know. Me, too." And then he turns and is gone.

She wants to say more, wants to tell him that she is sorting herself out and that she misses him, but he doesn't give her the chance.

She arrives at work so pale and stricken that people suggest several times that she ought to take a sick day and go back home, but "home" is the last place she wants to be.

When they tell her to go home, they mean an empty apartment meant for two that now only houses one. But, when she thinks of it, suddenly she realizes that home is in the arms of a scruffy blue-eyed man, no matter where that is.

And she's not sure if she'll ever be able to go home again.

* * *

><p>The tears in her eyes as he leaves the coffee shop nearly make him sick. He'd looked forward to spending his life being the one to wipe her tears away, but now he's the one that's causing them.<p>

He throws himself into his work day and then spends the night pacing the length of his small apartment, agitated and unable to sleep or concentrate on anything except the one thing that is wreaking chaos on his sanity. He quit keeping alcohol in the apartment after that night with the forgotten message, so he paces and goes for a run and intervenes in a heated argument between his neighbors before he finally goes to bed and doesn't sleep.

He gets through most of his days by simply turning off the memories altogether. The good, the bad, the neutral, he shuts them all up in a box and shoves it back in the recesses of his mind. Sam, Nell, Callen, Eric, Hetty, they all go in the box, too, because they're all a part of the world that had revolved around _her_.

Days like today, when something springs up at him unexpectedly, it all spills out and he has to struggle all over again to wrestle everything safely back into the box, where he can pack it away again for a while.

But that world doesn't like to stay in its box.

He's not surprised that Sam is the one to turn up first, on his favorite beach one morning before work. If he allowed himself to think about it, he'd actually be a little surprised that it took him this long. Nell and Hetty have left a few messages on his phone, but he hasn't returned their calls. Ever since Sidarov, Sam's been making amends, and he thinks they're actually friends now. Or they were, before he left all that behind. He has actually missed the big man with the loyal heart.

Still, Sam is a part of that world, and that world is hard to acknowledge without getting his defenses up.

"Did you come here to tell me to suck it up and let it go?"

Sam doesn't rise to the bait, just gives him a gentle smile and nods to the empty spot in the sand next to him.

"No. I just came to say hi, tell you you're missed."

Reluctantly, he plops down on the sand next to Sam, aware that the only way to get him to go away will be to hear him out first.

"Thanks. It's… nice to hear."

Sam spends a few minutes updating him on the latest Nell and Eric stories, Callen's latest escapades, and Michelle and the kids.

Deeks wars with himself about asking about Kensi; finally his concern wins out over his _clean break_ policy and he asks.

"Kensi?"

It's not much of a question, but Sam understands what he's looking for.

"She's getting by. Probably 'bout the same as you. She brought Monty in to work the other day. He looked good, but he watched your desk all day like he was waiting for you to arrive."

There's a long, weighty pause and each passing second builds tension into another muscle of Deeks' shoulders.

"You're better together. Both of you," Sam finally says quietly.

"You think I don't know that?!" He explodes, turning blazing blue eyes on Sam.

Immediately ashamed of the outburst, he turns his head away and stares out at the ocean.

"I'm the one who's living it, Sam. I'm the one who really knows."

Sam just levels steady brown eyes at him and waits for the storm to pass. It blows over as quickly as it came and his chin sinks to his chest as he closes his eyes.

"I can't be what she needs. She has this plan, and what I need doesn't fit in it."

He cuts his eyes back to Sam as he speaks, unconsciously pleading for affirmation that he isn't crazy and heartless.

"I spend too much time already pretending to be something I'm not. I won't spend my life lying to Kensi and to myself. We just want different things. I tried to let it go, I tried to just be what she wanted, but I can't do it. It wasn't enough."

"I get it, Deeks. I understand. For what it's worth, I think you were right. I know that doesn't make anything easier."

Sam thinks, i_f Michelle had said no…,_ but he doesn't say it, because Michelle hadn't said no and it'll just be a painful reminder to Deeks that some people do get their forever love story. He can't even comprehend the damage it would do to his heart to look at the woman he loved and feel not only love but rejection with every glance.

Deeks lifts his eyes to the water.

"Sometimes… sometimes I wonder if maybe being even just partly happy is better than being right. Maybe I should have just… maybe I could have tried again. Maybe it could have worked."

Sam lays a hand on his shoulder.

"Or maybe it could have destroyed you both."

Deeks searches the older man's face, looking for an answer that isn't there.

"Is that not what I did anyway?"

* * *

><p><em>AN: A little bit of both of them in this chapter.<br>_

_I'd love to hear what you think so far. The last couple chapter are not quite filled out yet, so it may be a few days to get them out, depending on how inspiration strikes. _


	5. Courage

**Courage**

_Forgiveness is the miracle_

_The miracle_

_And a miracle can change your world_

_Forgiveness is the miracle_

_(Jason Gray- Forgiveness is a Miracle) _

* * *

><p>When she knocks on his door tentatively late one night after she's finally come to a resolution to most of the questions, she has no idea what to expect from him.<p>

At first, she'd tried fishing Deeks' address out of Bates, but he was surprisingly protective of his detective's privacy. The impressionable and smitten young intern in the precinct bullpen, not so much. She might have been able to get it from Eric or Nell or Hetty, but she didn't want to involve them and she wonders if they might not be feeling just a little bit protective of him as well.

Monty is waiting by her side, both to diffuse some tension and because he still hasn't stopped watching the door, waiting for his master to come home.

She's finally come to some conclusions—some understanding of what had gone wrong and why they both had reacted the way they did. For the first time, perhaps in her whole life, she feels like she has some understanding of her own heart.

It took weeks to get through her thorough self-analysis. She even picked up the phone and forced herself to make a couple of long phone calls to Nate. Surprisingly, it's actually the conversations she's had with Sam that have brought the most clarity. Sam knows what it is to have something to lose, something to be afraid for. He also knows what it takes to hold on and see past that fear and make it work.

His surprise when he opens the door is palpable. Monty does his job breaking the ice—he's ecstatic to see Deeks and dances all over him for long moments after he opens the door. She can't help but smile at their long-overdue reunion.

When he ushers them silently into a neat but sparse and dingy apartment, she finds herself facing the ugliest couch she has ever seen.

"That couch is hideous."

She'd really meant to lead with someone more profound, but it just slips out. Really though, who designed that thing and thought it was a good idea?

Apparently, her slip up doesn't hurt anything because he smirks.

"Yeah, I kinda thought you'd think so."

She gingerly sits on the edge of one end, as if she's afraid the ugliness will rub off or he'll ask her to leave. For the first time, he regrets the fact that the couch is the only seating option in the living room. A couple awkward turns later, he perches on the edge of the coffee table. Monty, unwilling to be far away, scrabbles up into his lap.

"Why are you here, Kensi?" He asks. With a pang, he realizes that this is literally the first time that anyone but him has set foot in his apartment since he paid the kid downstairs to help him lug his couch in months ago.

"I wanted to talk to you." She's here, but being here, in his presence, makes it a thousand times harder to start the conversation that she's been practicing for days.

His look is something unfamiliar, just shy of amused and north of frustrated. When he speaks, his voice is tired.

"What… what more is there to say, Kensi?"

That question irritates her, because she can think of a thousand things to say, but none of them are appropriate beginnings for this conversation.

"_Something else is more important."_ It comes out almost a whisper, and he doesn't understand in the least.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

She straightens.

"'Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear,'" she recites quietly. It's the quote that has been echoing in her brain on a loop ever since she made the decision to trek over here.

"I've spent the last few weeks trying to sort my own brain out—to understand me better and you better and our relationship and what I really want and why things happened the way they did.

"I learned a lot about myself—things I never really let myself think about before, some things I'm not really proud of. But it's been good. It's helped me understand where it all went wrong.

Twisting her hands in her lap and biting her lip, she forces herself to meet his eyes as she continues.

"I was scared, Deeks. I don't like to be scared. I was scared to take that leap again, and I was scared that we would fall apart like it seems like every other marriage I've seen has, that we'd fail at this and that I'd lose you."

It had hit her like a lightning bolt one day a few weeks ago, this sudden realization that she doesn't know what a solid marriage really looks like. With that bolt came the understanding that a large part of the fear stemmed from not knowing how to do it right. All around her, it seems like all she sees are marriages falling apart. She and Jack fell apart before they even got started. Her parents fell apart. Her friends' marriages are coming apart all around her.

"Sam's marriage isn't falling apart." He's not sure if it's the most important thing to respond to from what she said, but it's what pops out of his mouth.

She gives him a half smile as he latches on to the bit of information that had been the beginning of her resolution.

"I know, and I had a few conversations with him that really helped me sort my head out. He's the one who reminded me what was important, what courage is."

Narrowing her eyes, she gets lost her own thought process as her eyes glance around the room, striking on him every few seconds.

"I think my goal my whole life has been to just not fail. And if we failed at that, at marriage, then the consequences were so much bigger than I could handle. And I've failed at it before, Deeks, even if I didn't get all the way to the altar, it still felt like I failed. So somewhere along the way I decided it was better to never try again. I had this warped notion that putting a ring on that finger again was what would jinx everything. It's not that I don't want to get married. It's not that I don't want to marry _you._ It's that I had this unconscious perception that marriage was like a death sentence for a relationship—like as long as I didn't marry you, I didn't have to worry as much about losing you."

She gives him a sardonic smile that says _we know how that worked out. _

"I didn't even realize that I had decided that setting the bar lower was good enough, that if I didn't try then I couldn't fail. But it's not good enough. But I don't want to miss out on any part of my life just because I was afraid to try again because there was a chance I could fail.

"I believe in us more than that. I know you better than that. And I think I know me better than that now, too"

She feels like she's rambling, and she never really felt like she had a handle on how to explain what's been going on in her own head, but he's listening steadily and without obvious confusion. It strikes her, not for the first time, that maybe he has always known her better than she knew herself.

"The end result is, I've decided that I refuse to live a life defined by my fear—conscious or unconscious. I refuse to lose out on what I want because I let my fear be more important than what I want. I want _you._ You are more important than that fear. I want a life with you."

She takes a deep breathe, shoring up her courage for what comes next.

"I'm asking you to forgive me and to think about giving us another shot."

There's a long pause, and while most of her knows that it's too much to expect for him to just sweep her into his arms and forgive her just like that, a small part of her heart still sinks to see the reluctance in his eyes. Finally he speaks, his words careful.

"I don't know if I know how to love you without it hurting anymore."

For months now, loving her has been synonymous with this crippling pain, and he doesn't know how to separate them anymore. They've become entangled and entwined and he can't think of one without feeling the other.

There's a huge part of him that wants to throw caution to the wind and yank her back into his arms and into his life. She's still, after all these weeks alone, everything that he wants, the only thing that he thinks he has ever truly loved. But something in his battered heart holds him back, unable to take that risk again.

She reaches across the space between them, and her hand hovers over his for a second before dropping back to her lap.

"That's my fault, and I'm sorry. I can't change what's already happened, but I'm ready to try to change what happens next. I promise to fight harder for you than I have fought for anything else in my life, no matter what you decide tonight, but I'd like to know that you're willing to try to forgive me and give it another try, too. Because I think I finally know how to love you without being afraid."

He searches her face for a long time, weighing the potential for more pain against a hope that he almost refuses to let ignite. When he speaks, it's not the words that she had hoped for, but it's not a _no_ so she'll take it.

"I'll think about it, Kens. That's the best I can give you right now. I'll think about it."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Review? :) <em>


	6. Caution & Contentment

**Caution & Contentment**

_"Maybe you and I were never meant to be complete  
>Could we just be broken together?<br>If you can bring your shattered dreams and I'll bring mine  
>Could healing still be spoken and save us?<br>The only way we'll last forever is broken together." _

_(Casting Crowns—Broken Together)_

* * *

><p>Four of the longest days of her life later, she finds him leaning against the wall outside the door of her favorite coffee shop. She hasn't been here in almost a week, but somehow he knows where she'll be.<p>

"I still don't know what my answer is, Kensi," he starts, pulling himself away from the wall to join her. Her heart sinks just a little.

"But, can I buy you a cup of coffee?"

It's a start.

She refuses to leave until he says he has to go and she winds up half an hour late for work, but she doesn't feel the least bit bad about it. She's reorienting her priorities, and, today, coffee with Deeks means that if the world needs saving, someone else can do it for a few minutes.

* * *

><p>He starts turning up like that, waiting to buy her coffee in the mornings or showing up at the door as she prepares to take Monty out for a walk. Somehow, he just still knows her and her habits well enough to know where and when to show up. It's both terrifying and beautiful to be known that completely.<p>

Kensi follows his lead, not wanting to push too hard or too fast. So, she shows up at the beach in the morning with breakfast while he's surfing, or at the precinct with lunch on days when she knows he'll be in the office. Little things, pushing without forcing, fighting silent battles for his trust.

She comes to the understanding fairly quickly that Marty Deeks is eventually going to forgive her. Despite how much she's put him through, his heart is too gentle to hold back his forgiveness for long. However, she's also come to know that forgiveness is not synonymous with restoration. He could very well forgive her and still choose to not go back down that path with her again. That's what she's most afraid of.

* * *

><p>He doesn't agree to try again that first day, or the second, or the third. He's still cautious. He needs to know that this new resolve and openness is real and lasting before he feels ready to jump in again. He needs to reserve a few ounces of self-preservation in case this is all going to implode.<p>

She's still his Kensi, his fierce, independent, strong Kensi, but she's a more open, self-aware Kensi now, and she keeps her promise to fight for him. He gets the sense that often she's mostly fighting against her own nature, her fears, her impatience, her self-sufficiency. When she keeps fighting, it makes the victories all the sweeter. And she does keep fighting. When weeks pass without an answer from him, she keeps showing up, keeps loving him back to her.

He starts finding sticky notes left behind sometimes after he sees her. Little sentences, sometimes no more than a word or two. Things she likes about him, admires about him, respects about him. They're things that are hard to work into an everyday conversation, but she wants him to know them. They're powerful ammo in her arsenal in this war she's waging for his heart.

He tells himself he's not looking for them when he cleans his car out or searches his bag for his phone or shakes his towel out, but the disappointment he feels when he doesn't find one and the way his heart races when he does tell him that he's lying to himself.

They're not mushy love letters or cutesy poems; they're just simple statements in her hurried scrawl. He keeps them, lined up on his dresser. For a boy who grew up without any brand of affirmation and a man who is used to being brushed off by his peers, they're irresistible. They sneak little fingers of dignity into his heart and hold on.

They're her reminders, in her own way, that he is admired and respected and they are far more powerful than declarations of love and affection; there is more healing in them than in apologies and promises.

Ever since she said no, his brain has been hounding him with reasons why he's not enough. Gradually, one by one, her notes fight back with reasons that he is. Slowly, the thought of her starts bringing tickles of excitement again instead of pain, little flashes of warmth in a heart that's been numb for months.

* * *

><p>It all comes to a head one Saturday morning on the beach. It's been several weeks and he still hasn't given her an answer, but she's been showing up with breakfast at his Saturday surf spot every Saturday. Sometimes, when a case keeps him over the weekend, he's not there, but that morning he is.<p>

The last months of pain haven't disappeared, but they've faded into the past, overshadowed by the determined love of this woman whom he has continued to love through the pain and the darkness, this flawed, imperfect, utterly irresistible woman who fills his heart. They have known each other for a long time, but the last weeks have taught them to understand each other better, in all their strengths and all their brokenness.

They're sitting high on the beach after breakfast, watching the waves break on the sand, when he starts speaking quietly. The last weeks have been largely about understanding her fears and learning to trust her again. They've talked about him, too, but he needs to be sure that she understands why he left as well. It's the place where his fears and hers intersected to make staying impossible.

He stares out at the ocean as he speaks instead of looking at her, almost as if he's talked to himself.

"I've spent my whole life pretending, Kensi. Pretending my dad wasn't hitting us. Pretending my mom cared what I did. Pretending to be just an average guy to the people I called friends. Pretending to be evil men who do terrible things. And then I got a taste of not having to pretend anymore, with you. And somehow you knew me and you still wanted me, and I didn't have to fake it. It was like this whole new kind of freedom I'd never even tasted before. And then, when you said no, when you wanted me to just give up that dream and move on, you were asking me to start pretending again."

A hand comes up to touch her cheek for just a millisecond, and as it drops, so do his eyes. "I'd had a taste of what it was like to be really honest with someone, and then, when you asked me to forget about wanting to marry you, you were asking me to spend the rest of my life faking it again. I couldn't lie to you like that. I couldn't lie to myself like that anymore."

It's a need he had never even fully understood himself, this need to be fully honest and fully known, and still fully accepted and loved. It's something he'd never had before, and it had opened up a whole new thirst in him that was insatiable.

"I didn't stop loving you or wanting you. I loved you too much to lie to you like that. It was eating me up Kensi, like I was trapped back into everything I thought I'd escaped from. We both deserved better than that."

He fidgets with a handful of sand as he finishes speaking, glancing at her to see her reaction.

She faces him square on and reaches out to touch his hand.

"Yeah, we did. We do." Looking him in the eye, she can finally say that honestly and know that it's true. Her lips twist into a smile that is half humorous and half wry.

"We're both kinda messed up, huh?"

"Yeah." For the first time, that doesn't sound like such a bad thing, as long as they're broken together. "It's okay, Kens. I understand. I forgive you."

A weight lifts off her heart that she hadn't even fully realized that she'd been carrying, and she takes a deep, freeing breath. His next words surprise her.

"Can you forgive me?"

She twists her head to look at him curiously.

"For what?"

His blue eyes lock with her brown ones and she can see the need in them.

"For walking away from you? I promised I'd never leave you, and then I did. Just like everyone else."

The knowledge that he broke that promise he had made to her has been eating at him for months. It was perhaps the most important promise he'd ever made, and he'd broken it.

She melts. She's been shouldering all the blame on her own, but she can see in his eyes that he feels like he's carrying some of it as well. It's true, his leaving had wounded her, but she had rolled that pain into all the pain she blamed herself for. It's freeing to have him acknowledge it, even if she still doesn't feel that he's really at fault for it.

"Yes. Of course. Yes. I forgive you."

Scooting Monty out of the way, Kensi moves closer to him, taking a deep breath to prepare herself to take a leap. She hasn't pressed him for an answer to her question from weeks before, but it feels like they're ready, like now is the time.

"I know we can't just jump back to the day you proposed and go from there, but can we start again? Take what we've learned and go forward from here, but with you knowing that I'm ready now to entertain that possibility when the time comes?"

She says _when_, not _if_, because there is no doubt in her mind that she wants to marry this man.

She lays her hand in the sand between them, palm up, offering it to him. There is a long, weighty silence, and she holds her breath without even realizing she's doing it.

Finally, he speaks as he drops his hand into hers and laces their fingers.

"Yeah. We can do that." A smile creeps across his face with those words, and it's wide and soft and real.

"Okay," she takes a deep breath, "this is my start."

She turns to run her free hand up the side of his face until her fingers tangle in the hair at his temples. He closes his eyes and presses into her touch. It's her turn to calm some of his fears, finally lay his doubts to rest.

"I love you. I love everything that you are and everything you make me. I love you when you're happy and when you're annoying and when you're sappy and when you're sad. I think you are the most extraordinary man I have ever met, and I know that you're the only one I want to spend my life with. You are so much more than just _enough_; you are _everything._ And, no matter what happens, I'm going to spend the rest of my life by your side, loving you and reminding you of that."

He drops her hand to drag her onto his lap, folding her into the circle of his arms. Her face tucks into the curve of his neck and the tickle of her warm breath on his skin, so familiar and yet so new, almost makes him laugh out loud, he's so giddy from the way the weight on his heart has lifted.

Everything he thought had ended is beginning again.

* * *

><p><em>"And a miracle will change your world.<em>

_Forgiveness is the miracle."_

_(Jason Gray, Forgiveness is a Miracle)_

* * *

><p><em>AN: I ran out of Jason Gray lyrics, so you get Casting Crowns to start with this time. I toyed with making this two chapters, partly because I had two titles for it, but it just felt more complete as one. <em>

_This is the end of this story. I think. I never intended for it to go past this last scene, and unless inspiration strikes again, this is where I'll leave it. _

_I love to hear what you think, whether you loved it or something didn't sit quite right. Reviews make my day. _


	7. Epilogue: Constant

_AN: As promised, here is the epilogue. As much as I had intended to leave it after then end of the last chapter, bits and pieces of this have been rattling around in my mind ever since I started the story. So, here's one last bit to bring it all together. _

* * *

><p>Constant<p>

* * *

><p><em>"In every heart there is a hollow<em>  
><em>Locked against the pain it's known<em>  
><em>If there's a key, the key is sorrow<em>  
><em>Only a trusted hand can hold<em>

_If you want to love someone_  
><em>Search their soul for where it's broken<em>  
><em>Find the cracks and pour your heart in<em>  
><em>If you want to love someone."<em>

_(Jason Gray, "If You Want to Love Someone")_

* * *

><p>He's doing deep breathing exercises in his living room to steady himself when there's a knock on the door. He tenses and his mind goes blank for a minute. It can't be her. He's supposed to be picking her up. She doesn't knock. Nell would have warned him if she was coming.<p>

He opens the door and finds Sam outside and a shuddering sigh of relief whooshes out of him.

The big man takes in his pale face and trembling hands and has the audacity to grin at his friend's discomfort.

"Can, uh, do you need something?"

Sam just keeps grinning at him.

"You were weird all week at work. I figured tonight must be the night. Just thought I'd stop in to offer some moral support."

Deeks relaxes for a moment, grateful, and crashes down onto the couch for a few seconds before leaping back up and starting to pace.

"Weird, huh?"

Sam smirks a little.

"Well, weirder than usual."

Deeks rolls his eyes in mock annoyance.

"Do you think she noticed?"

Sam takes a minute to consider, and eventually shakes his head.

"I doubt it. I've done this before, remember? I know the signs. And you weren't trying to hide it from me like you were from her."

Deeks sighs in relief and slumps back into the couch.

It's harder this time than the first time, if that's possible. He'd been quaking in his sandals the first time, but now he's legitimately afraid that he's going to pass out from the nerves.

It's not because he doesn't know what her answer will be. They've talked about this. They're ready. She's ready this time. Logically, it should be easier this time around. Fear is immune to logic.

He's still shaking. He thought she was ready last time. He'd been sure that they were ready to take that step, and then it had all crashed and burned when instead of a "yes" he got anger and panic and not just one "no," but many of them.

He knows that's not how this night is going to end, but the fear is still there. It's irrational and unfounded, but it has its claws dug deep in him.

"You think she's ready, right?" he asks, turning to the big man

Sam chuckles, but his face is sympathetic. He's as calm as ever, and his ease relaxes Deeks a little bit.

"I think if you wait any longer, she's going to be the one asking you."

_No. _

His heart surges vehemently against that possibility. This is his to ask. His to redeem. His fear to overcome. His future to claim.

Yes, it's about both of them, it's _their_ future, but Kensi has taken her turn fighting for them. In his mind, this is his ultimate response to her, his turn to conquer the fear and choose their future, his second chance at what he's always dreamed for them.

He wants to be the one to do this. He wants to hear her _yes_ finally drown out all the _no_s, once and for all.

Rolling his shoulders, he shakes his arms and hands in the air, as if he can shake the nerves off by doing so. Pulling a slightly worn blue box out of his pocket, he flips the top open and stares at it a moment.

"She's going to say yes, right?"

He knows the answer. He _knows_ it, but he still would like to hear it from someone else.

Sam has the grace not to laugh or tease him.

"She's going to say yes, Deeks." He tells him firmly, laying a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

A little bit of the fear quiets in him and he looks back down at the ring again.

It's beautiful. It's sparkling in the light, as clean and bright and unblemished as it had been when he first bought it.

He'd considered buying a new ring, one that didn't have painful memories attached to it, one that was a fresh start. He'd gone to look at them more than once, but nothing had ever felt right to him.

This is the ring he'd chosen for her. The one he'd imagined her wearing. This is the one he'd planned and dreamed over.

Their story contains painful memories. There's nothing he can do to change that. He has come to the conclusion that he wouldn't do anything to change it even if he could. They are better now for those painful parts. They are more open and more real, they push each other to be honest and they remind each other what is valuable. Before, he has come to realize, he worried that his love was going to be too much for her, that she was going to be overwhelmed by it and run.

And she did. But then she came back. She came back and fought to get him back and loved his fears away again. He's no longer afraid that his love will be too much or that he is not enough, because he's seen her love match his, her heart mend his.

When then were broken, they chose not to give up, and they came out of the brokenness more whole than ever before.

He knows what her answer is going to be. Because of that period of brokenness and restoration they are infinitely more ready for this adventure of marriage than they were the first time he asked. She's ready. He's ready. They're ready.

Squaring his shoulders, he faces the door. Sam gives him a friendly slap on the shoulder and then uses that hand to propel him toward the door.

He's still shaking, but he knows they're ready.

* * *

><p>"Do you think he's ever going to ask me again, Nell?"<p>

Kensi's voice is almost pleading. They're lying, face down, on massage tables at the spa, quiet music playing around them.

"Ask you?" Nell keeps her face hidden and her voice carefully oblivious.

"Ask me to marry him. It's been months. _Months, _Nell_. _And I'm trying to be patient, but I'm just _so_ ready to marry him. Everything is completely flipped around; I thought I didn't even want to get married before, and now I just want to marry him _so bad_, Nell."

She's pretty sure the tension of this conversation and her anxiety over the situation is negating any benefits of the massage, but she just can't help it.

The last weeks have given her a whole new understanding of Deeks and his responses after he proposed the first time. They've come a long way in recent months, and she feels like they're ready to take this leap. She's been feeling that way for what seems like forever, and she wants it so badly that the waiting is torture.

But it's a sweet torture, because she has hope. She has a reasonable expectation that the day is coming, and that it could be coming soon. It's gut-wrenching for her now, to think of those weeks after she'd said no to him the first time, when he'd tried to let it go for her sake. When he'd stayed by her side and pretended that it didn't matter that she'd trampled both the dream and the hope. It's extraordinary to finally understand that kind of love.

The tables have completely turned in her own heart now. She wants to marry him so badly, she can't even fathom now what it would feel like to be asked to give up the idea.

Despite the several conversations they've had lately—both directly and indirectly—she has an unfounded niggling fear that maybe she missed her chance, maybe he's never going to be ready to take that risk on her again.

"Maybe I just totally ruined that and now he's never going to want to ask again. Maybe he doesn't want to marry me anymore."

Nell laughs and Kensi lifts her head to aim a glare at her.

"The man broke up with you because he wanted to marry you so bad, Blye. He didn't stop wanting that because he took you back."

Kensi knows this. She doesn't have any reason to think that he's changed his mind, but fear doesn't always claim to be reasonable, and she is not generally known for her patience.

Kensi takes a deep breath and exhales, mentally telling herself things she already knows. Marty Deeks loves her with a love that knows no bounds. He wants to spend his life with her. He wants to be her husband. It's going to happen.

But maybe it doesn't have to happen the traditional way. They aren't exactly traditional, after all.

"Maybe it's my turn to ask, my turn to take the risk."

Nell's laughter carries across the small space between them.

"I think you need to let him do this in his own time. It was scary the first time, this time he's got all your "no"s in his memory to make it all that much scarier. Give him some time."

Nell turns and hides a smile in the massage table. Her invitation to Kensi for a girls' spa afternoon had been, unbeknownst to Kensi, instigated by a request from Deeks that she had been all too happy to agree to.

If Kensi has considered the significance of the date, she hasn't mentioned it. Nell carefully avoids suggesting it and focuses instead on advising patience, as if she doesn't know what tonight has in store.

* * *

><p>He takes her to the beach.<p>

It's cliche, but he's spent weeks debating it in his own mind and he just kept coming back to it. So much of their relationship, so much of their healing took place there, he was inexorably drawn back to it any time he considered anything else. It's also normal enough for them that if she hasn't been clued in by his "weird" behavior all week, it won't make her unduly suspicious.

He's got her hand in one of his and a blanket in the other. He's got dinner in a basket and the ring in his pocket.

They spread the blanket and kick off their shoes and she settles into the soft pillows of sand, her body still liquid from her earlier massage.

"No surfboard?" She asks, watching the waves absentmindedly, her eyes half-closed as he draws items from the basket. "Swells look pretty good tonight."

There are several surfers out on the water using the last of the afternoon light to make good use of the surf.

"Nah," he chokes out, "there's something else I wanted to do tonight."

She turns to find him on one knee on the blanket next to her and her eyes widen.

It turns out, she puts him out of his misery before he even has the chance to ask the question.

"Yes."

He coughs out a relieved laugh and then pretends to be annoyed.

"I haven't asked a question yet, woman. I've been practicing this, at least let me say what I planned to say."

Her answering laugh is light, but brimming with unshed tears.

"You knocked on my door six months ago and told me you figured out that 'something else is more important than fear.' "

Reaching out, he takes one of her hands with his free one.

"As strong as we are, there are always going to be things that make us afraid. I think marriage could be the scariest thing we've ever attempted. But I promise that you will always be the thing that is more important than my fear, than _anything _else. We've made it through so much already and, no matter what life throws at us, I'm more sure than ever before that you are the one I want by my side through it all."

He's calm now, the nerves stilled, replaced by quiet certainty as he speaks.

"So, will you marry me?"

She's been holding her lips pressed together, locking the words and the tears in as they threaten to overflow.

When he finishes, the smile that splits her face keeps her from speaking. Surprisingly, her speechlessness doesn't perturb him and his own smile breaks free.

"_Now_ you can say yes."

She laughs, moving into his arms and bringing her face close to his, smiling into his eyes.

"Yes. Of course. Yes," she chokes out around the tears and the grin stretching her lips as she presses her smile to his. Each _yes_ drowns out, once and for all, one _no _that had echoed between them, and she repeats it over and over, reveling in the joy she can feel bubbling in him and in herself.

"Yes. Finally. Yes."

* * *

><p><em>AN: And there it is. I'm pretty sure this is actually the end this time. Many thanks to those of you who have reviewed and kept this story in my mind, reminding me that I did want to add one last piece to it. It probably only got written because I knew there were people waiting for it. Love to hear your thoughts on this last piece. <em>

_I've got a couple of pieces in the works for _To Love At All, _but I'm not sure how long they'll be. _


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